1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a setup table or conveyor belt for bottle handling machines with inlet and outlet stars or star wheels and corresponding guide rails for the bottles. The set-up table also has drive devices for individual stars and handling stations, and a carrier plate that covers, conceals or protects the drive devices.
2. Background Information
Setup tables or conveyors of the type described above are used on bottle handling machines upstream of the large handling rotating body itself, which has a plurality of circular handling spaces located next to one another for the individual bottles. For the delivery and removal of the bottles, such a setup table has a lead-in conveyor or worm gear that is used to establish a separation distance that corresponds to the spacing of the handling spaces of the rotating body. The lead-in conveyor then delivers the bottles at the correct intervals into circulating intermediate stars which in turn transfer the bottles to the handling spaces. Corresponding transfer stars are provided in the outlet-side portion of the rotating body to extract and transport the bottles away from the handling machine after the bottles have passed through the handling machine.
In the vicinity of this setup table there can be additional treatment stations, e.g. closing machines, labelling machines etc. On account of the high speed of processing, in particular in this area as a whole, there are frequently residual glass fragments or fluids, which means that a corresponding periodic cleaning of the machine is necessary.